We decided it would be interesting to approach the music as a group solo.
– Herbie Hancock
We live on a planet that now must face, hopefully, a form of globalization inclusive of a vision to make the world a better place for the many -not just a select few -and I believe that the arts are in the forefront of that dream.
– Herbie Hancock
We realize that there doesn't seem to be a lot of people looking into new ways of reexamining the conventions that we've grown to accept in the music.
– Herbie Hancock
We wanted to share creativity and didn't want to be bound by traditional jazz conventions.
– Herbie Hancock
We were listening to a lot of different people, but we were listening to a lot of real innovators, and we were full of ideas.
– Herbie Hancock
We're dealing with jazz, so we don't have pop/mainstream budgets.
– Herbie Hancock
We've been looking at machines for so long, I really wish the technology community would look at human beings first for a change, let's balance the thing out.
– Herbie Hancock
Well, I was becoming more of a jazz snob, in thinking that jazz was a higher kind of music, and that R&B was, yes, for the body and more commercial.
– Herbie Hancock
Well, I'm hoping that the narrow categories of music are forced to develop activities that reflect a broader variety of music, so that people get exposed to more variety that they certainly are now.
– Herbie Hancock
What establishes value is something that is going to move humanity forward. If humanity is not in the equation, it's like the planet without any human beings on it.
– Herbie Hancock
What I always wonder is, why is it that whenever I make a record they think that whatever that thing is on that record, that's the only thing I do?
– Herbie Hancock
'What's music supposed to be about anyway? Is it a means for a musician to masturbate, or is it for people to listen to?
– Herbie Hancock
When I did Future 2 Future, it occurred to me, that I hadn't really done anything in electric music in a while.
– Herbie Hancock
When I discovered Buddhism, I realized that Buddhism agrees with that. Buddhism adds something, too, which is that your life also never begins. It's eternal.
– Herbie Hancock
When I do concerts, because I've been in the business for a long time and certain pieces of music have become associated with me, I do some pieces from the past.
– Herbie Hancock
When I sense a more conservative and limiting attitude coming from musicians, than my impression is that they're really moving away from the true spirit of jazz.
– Herbie Hancock
When I was a kid, I used to sit up in bed, put my elbows on the windowsill and look out at the stars and wonder. About space, eternity, the concept of God and creation.
– Herbie Hancock
When I was a kid, I won a contest and played a Mozart concerto with the Chicago Symphony, and I've written some movie scores, and I've been listening to orchestral music for years.
– Herbie Hancock
When I was coming up, I practiced all the time because I thought if I didn't I couldn't do my best.
– Herbie Hancock
When I was in Germany, I read an article in an electronica magazine where they asked 12 or 15 musicians who are some of the musicians that influenced them. And about 65 or 70% of them said that I had influenced them.
– Herbie Hancock
When I was in my early teens, I remember coming to the conclusion that your life never ends.
– Herbie Hancock
When I was young I used to listen to everything.
– Herbie Hancock
When I'm sensitive to the circumstances surrounding me, then I can be inspired by them or use them in whatever I may be creating.
– Herbie Hancock
When synthesizers came along, it was the first time I thought that the two things I loved, which were science and music, could be put together.
– Herbie Hancock
When you struggle to reach for something you don't know, that's where the most interesting stuff is.
– Herbie Hancock
When you try to define a purity as being something that's closed and limited, you're not talking about the music that I play called jazz.
– Herbie Hancock
While knowledge may provide useful point of reference, it cannot become a force to guide the future.
– Herbie Hancock
Wisdom corresponds to the future; it is philosophy.
– Herbie Hancock
Wisdom is on a higher plane, and as human beings, it's part of our 'being-ness' to have the capacity to manifest wisdom through creativity.
– Herbie Hancock
Wisdom is the key to understanding the age, creating the time.
– Herbie Hancock
Without wisdom, the future has no meaning, no valuable purpose.
– Herbie Hancock
You asked me before about being an innovator and I mentioned that I've always been some kind of leader.
– Herbie Hancock
You can expand, repeat, even change keys and do other things electronically to give certain elements and phrases more cohesiveness.
– Herbie Hancock
You can practice to attain knowledge, but you can't practice to attain wisdom.
– Herbie Hancock
You can practice to learn a technique, but I'm more interested in conceiving of something in the moment.
– Herbie Hancock
You could never tell what was going on with Miles. You'd always leave the session not knowing if they got anything of any value because it was always so different.
– Herbie Hancock
You don't know what that's going to sound like; you just do it because the urge is there.
– Herbie Hancock
You don't need the fame to be vital.
– Herbie Hancock
You never knew, when you came out of there, what you did, or whether it was good. It never sounded good to me. It always sounded interesting but you wondered, what were we doing?
– Herbie Hancock
You would not exist if you did not have something to bring to the table of life.